Morning Training (Part 2)

"Worororororo~ Brat, let me see where your limits lie!" Captain Kaido laughed heartily.

The Spiked Club and Obelisk swung faster and faster, each blow heavier than the last.

The two seemed to wield their weapons without limit, venting their Haki. Every strike of the Obelisk crackled with Thunder Light, while every swing of the Spiked Club seemed capable of splitting mountains and shattering rocks.

Yet despite their increasingly fierce clash, they tacitly refrained from using their abilities. From beginning to end, they attacked with Haki alone.

"Hah!"

Kaido brought his club down in a heavy leaping strike against Ra's Obelisk, crushing the ground within a dozen meters beneath her feet into a deep depression.

But before he could exert any more force, Ra twisted her wrist and deflected the Spiked Club, then struck for his face from an unbelievable angle.

Kaido hastily threw his head back, nearly having one side of his beard sliced off.

"Ha ha! You brat, you're getting more and more accustomed to fighting."

"Because combat techniques aren't difficult to learn."

"How arrogant~ But you do have the right to be. Keep going, I've only just started to get—"

"Mr. Kaido! Boss!"

Before Kaido could finish, the voices of King and Burufatt from afar interrupted their morning exercise.

Kaido and Ra stopped at the same time.

Even after a battle that looked insanely intense to outsiders, their breathing remained calm. The stamina of a Mythical Zoan and Ra's divine-forged body was practically bottomless.

"So it's you two. What, did the noise from our morning training wake you up?"

"I'm afraid it wasn't just us. The townspeople and our crew all thought it was an earthquake. Everyone's gone into hiding," Burufatt said helplessly.

Honestly, with Kaido and Ra's current strength, even a mere morning workout should not have been held on an island serving as their own base.

"So it did cause trouble after all. Captain Kaido, we can't do this again."

"Forget about that. By the way, those buns of yours should be ready by now, right? Old Cook should be preparing breakfast around this time. After working out, I'm just hungry!"

Kaido paid it no mind. Stowing away his Spiked Club, he headed straight for the dining hall.

"Twenty-five minutes and forty seconds. They should be ready by the time we get there. I'll go wake Oshi and Obe." Ra calculated silently and immediately arrived at the exact time.

"Mmm! So fragrant, so good! Sister Ra, when did you learn how to make buns?" Oshi stuffed one bun after another into her mouth, waving her hands like windmills.

"I learned this morning. Have some water. Don't choke." Ra handed her a cup of tea.

"Oshi, slow down! Look at the way you're eating... Hey, leave some for me!" Obe had intended to lecture her a little, but when she saw Oshi rapidly demolishing an entire steamer basket of buns, she hurriedly joined in to grab some food.

"Mm, they're too small. Can't even taste them!"

Burufatt picked up a bun with two fingers and tossed it into his mouth, smacking his lips twice.

Meanwhile, Kaido simply picked up an entire steamer basket and dumped it all into his mouth. That amount truly wasn't even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

"Not bad. There's just too little."

King, on the other hand, did not touch any. He apparently had no intention of removing that airtight mask.

"I made them according to our standards, after all. Next time, I'll try making them bigger... King, aren't you eating?"

"I don't need to."

"King isn't used to eating in front of others," Kaido explained.

"I know, I know! It's one of those settings where he can't take off his mask in front of everyone, right? Usually, that means either he carries an unknown past, or he's... mmph, mmm!"

Obe grabbed a bun and stuffed it directly into Oshi's mouth.

"Eat if you're eating. Are you writing a novel over here?"

King: ...

"Skipping breakfast isn't good for your body. If you're not used to showing your face in public, you can take some away and eat it elsewhere," Ra said from the side.

"No need to worry. King isn't some child who needs someone else to feed him. You, on the other hand, may be young, but you've got the personality of an old mother," Burufatt remarked.

"Exactly, exactly. I've always thought Sister Ra was like a mom. She won't let us do this, won't let us do that," Oshi chimed in.

"Agreed." Obe rarely found herself in agreement with Oshi.

Ra: ...

Honestly, Ra herself felt like a retired old person with nothing to do, always wanting to find something to occupy herself with—cooking, feeding cats and dogs, and so on...

As they chatted, the proper breakfast was brought into the dining hall.

Unexpectedly, the bowls no longer contained the same old grilled steaks. Instead, they held a rather light vegetable porridge.

Seeing everyone's puzzled expressions, the pirate who brought the dishes over carefully explained, "Boss Kaido, there was suddenly an earthquake this morning for some reason. All the vegetable vendors ran off to take shelter, so we could only make do with what was left from yesterday."

Upon hearing the explanation, Ra turned to look at Kaido. He acted as though he had heard nothing, gulping down a bowl of porridge at a time without any fear of the heat.

"It's still not satisfying without meat! By the way, how is the Haki training going for you two brats?"

After downing ten bowls, Kaido paused briefly, then remembered the matter he had assigned to King and Burufatt yesterday.

"I-I! I've completely mastered that Observation Haki thing!" Without waiting for anyone else to speak, Oshi proudly raised her hand first.

Obe, meanwhile, kept her head lowered as she sipped the porridge in front of her mouthful by mouthful without saying anything. It seemed she still had not found the trick to it.

"The Red-haired girl has exceptional talent. Her Observation Haki can barely meet the needs of combat now. But the Blue-haired girl has made no progress at all." King showed no mercy as he bluntly stated their situations.

Obe lowered her head even further. King's words were no different from a public execution for someone as proud as her.

"Hm? You haven't found the reason?" Captain Kaido did not believe that Obe lacked talent in that regard.

"Perhaps this method isn't suited to Obe. I'll take charge of her training from now on." Sister Ra gently stroked Obe's lowered head.

"Fine. But you need to hurry. The sea hasn't been peaceful lately. By then, the two of them must at least be capable of protecting themselves," Captain Kaido reminded them.

"Understood."

Sister Ra nodded, then asked about something that had caught her attention. "By the way, Captain Kaido, I saw a kind of bird delivering newspapers in town. Is that a specialty of this island?"

"You don't even know about News Coos?" Burufatt was somewhat surprised.

"That's the World Economic News Company's dedicated method of newspaper delivery. With these News Coos, they can send the latest news to every corner of the seas in the shortest possible time. That's also why they've managed to dominate the news industry."

"Using birds to deliver newspapers—aren't they afraid people will shoot them down and eat them?" Oshi immediately thought of that possibility.

"Very few people would do that, unless they were starving to death."

"Because once you attack a News Coo, no News Coo will ever deliver newspapers to you again. Losing information from the outside world is extremely dangerous at sea. It isn't worth it for that little bit of meat."

"Ooh~~ So that's how it is. I thought the meat just didn't taste good."

"Captain Kaido, could you gather a set of newspapers from past years for me? I want to learn about what happened over the last few years. And it would be even better if I could find someone literate to translate for me." Sister Ra began looking for things to do again.

"Just go find Cook. That guy can read, and he's bought pretty much every issue of the newspaper." Captain Kaido thought of Cook, the experienced old chef.

"Mhm, alright." Sister Ra nodded, thinking that she could also take the opportunity to learn some cooking from Cook.

By midmorning, the pirates gradually began getting up, and the dining hall slowly became lively as well.

"Oshi, Obe, once you're done eating, you can rest for a while. I'll be waiting for you at yesterday's training spot in an hour."

"Okay, Sister Ra (Big Sis)."

"King, Burufatt, since those two brats don't need teaching anymore, come out with me."

"Alright, Mr. Kaido (Boss)."

PS: When King ate, he first transformed the mouth area into a pterosaur, then used his beak to eat. That way, he did not need to remove his mask.

This was also recorded in SBS~